Saturday, March 16, 2019

It’s amazing how much a smartphone can do. Obviously,
there’s calls, and texts, including video calls. They’re also great for photos,
videos, checking and sending emails, playing games, and even music. They do so
much, our phones tend to be our go to device. We can do everything with them.
And every year they keep getting bigger, better, and faster. Which is the right
one for you? Enter the LG V40 ThinQ.

While so many used to have a cellphone, camera, camcorder
and music player, and even a PDA, now the current smartphone can replace them
all! The new smartphones may not do all of those functions excellently, it does
all of them at least very good. The big battle that everyone is trying to get
better at is at photos and video. But what about audio?

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like music. And thanks to
their increased storage capacity of internal storage, as well as the use of
memory cards, you do not have to resort to just streaming services. You can
even save your entire CD collection onto your phone, and turn it into the
ultimate music player! And this is what really confuses me. Everyone enjoys
their music. And we’ll spend $500, $700, even around $1000 on the new
smartphone. But then go around and spend $20 or $50 on a pair of headphones at
your neighborhood Walmart. For those of you that want to actually enjoy your
music there are much better headphones available. Smartphones are also
improving on that front as well. Sure AptX will give us CD quality sound, but
there’s also hi-res audio now as well.

Hi-Res Audio is starting to go big. If you thought music
sounded good on CD, you need to listen to Hi-Res audio. The sound quality is
amazing. There are more and more headphones coming out that can handle it as
well. But most smartphones aren’t built for excellent audio. That’s were the LG
V40 ThinQ comes in. It is probably the most under-rated phone available, and it’s
also one of the best smartphones available! It’s one of the few that are also
designed for audio.

Always-On
Display - time, date, and notifications appear on a sleeping screen

Palm
Rejection - prevents accidental interactions on the touch screen

* Actual viewable area is less due to rounded corners and
notch.

Design & Durability

Size:
6.25" (H) x 2.98" (W) x 0.31" (D), Weight: 5.96 oz.

Dedicated
Google Assistant Key

IP68
Dust and Water Resistant1

Shock
Resistant - MIL-STD-810G Tested2

Corning®
Gorilla® Glass 5 - protection on front, back, and camera

Heat
Pipe - absorbs and moves heat away from the processor to help minimize the
risk of overheating

1 Tested under controlled laboratory conditions with a
rating of IP68 under IEC standard 60529 (Water resistant up to 1.5 meters for
30 minutes). If the product gets wet, use a clean, soft cloth to dry it
thoroughly.
2 Compliant with a military standards test (MIL-STD-810G Method 516.6,
Procedure IV “Transit Drop”). Device may not perform as tested in all
conditions. Test performed in controlled environment. Do not attempt.

The LG V40 came in an elegant looking black box. Opening the
box revealed a well protected phone wrapped in plastic and held in place by
custom paper box. The plastic wrapping showed some of the phone’s features.
Sliding the phone out of the plastic protective wrap, showed a beautifully
elegant black phone. It has an aluminum frame with glass wrapping both the front
and back. While gorgeous to look at now, it’s also a fingerprint magnet.
Quality of materials used was excellent, as was the fit and finish. This is
LG’s flagship phone, and it shows! Also included are the guides, charging
cable, wall adapter, some fairly basic earbuds, and a replacement ear tip for
the earbuds, as well as a small tool to access the sim card tray. Now it’s time
to get it charged.

This is an android device. We won’t be covering all of the
details of Android, or the Oreo 8.1 OS that it uses. Although I was a little
disappointed that it didn’t come already loaded with Pie 9.0, as Pie was
released before the phone was. Walking through the setup was extremely easy.
And downloading the LG Mobile Switch app made it very easy to get all of my
info from my LG V20 to the LG V40. The app also worked great back when I got my
info from my old HTC phone onto the V20. Now that it’s setup, it’s time to put
it through the paces.

We’ll start with the display. The LG V40’s P-OLED display is
nothing short of breath taking! And while it is huge at 6.4 inches, it does not
seem huge. I also like the way it goes all the way to the top, and wraps under
the front camera lenses and speaker. Colors really pop with excellent
resolution and are well saturated. Contrast is also excellent, and thanks to
the high resolution the images are also really sharp! Whites are bright, and
blacks are deep and inky black. And whether you are looking at photos or
videos, they all look amazing. I liked the 2nd small display at the
top of the V20, and am glad to see it is used on the V40, at the very top on
each side of the lenses to display notifications for time, email, texts,
temperature, wi-fi and signal strength. The always on feature is nice. The screen goes completely black, adjust displays the
time, date, notifications, temperature and battery life. The LG V40 ThinQ is a
top of the line phone, and the internals also match up to this level of
product. It comes with the quality top tier Snapdragon 845, Adreno 630 GPU, 6GB
of RAM and 64 GB of memory, as well as an SD card slot. That means you will
have the power for all of the apps you use. Whether it’s games you play or
music you listen to on your daily commute or documents you may need to access
and work on for work, there is plenty of computing power at your fingertips.

When I think of a smartphone, I initially think of talking
and texting. But there is also surfing online, playing games, listening to
music, as well as taking pictures and recording video. The LG V40 ThinQ does it
all extremely well. Calls come in crystal clear, and those who I spoke to heard
me crystal clear as well. Text messages were very responsive. All my favorite
time passing games also played very well with excellent visuals,
responsiveness, and great sound. And when I wanted to turn to YouTube and
didn’t have any headphones with me, the built-in speaker played sufficiently
loud, and sounded good for a smartphone speaker. There’s an internal cavity to
improve bass responses and it did help. Holding the phone I could feel the
improved bass as the phone had a little resonance to it. Listening with
headphones, my music sounded extremely good. When it came time to use the
camera for pictures and video, I was even more impressed.

To me, it’s a little funny how much weight we put on the
quality of photos out of our phones. After all, it’s not like it’s a DSLR with
a larger sensor and a bunch of glass in the lens. Yet manufacturers have been
working hard to improve the quality of the photos and videos. LG has had great
success with the V40.

For me, the use of 5 cameras is awesome! You get 3 main
cameras; 1 for regular shots, 1 telephoto lens, and 1 wide angle lens. On the
front you get 2 cameras for your selfies; 1 regular lens, and 1 wide angle
lens. And to bring it all together, they provided a great app that is easy to
use! Moving around among the settings and various modes was easy, even for a
beginner.

In the main camera page, you have buttons for what will
probably be used the most. There is AI Cam, Triple shot, portrait, and google
lens. AI Cam did everything for you, and worked very well. Triple shot is just
what it sounds like. It takes a pic with each lens, so you get a photo using
regular, telephoto and wide angle. Portrait is for when individuals are in the
photo. Google Lens is for finding that item or a similar item, so you can buy
it online. It is cool in theory, but was hit and miss. Mostly it was a miss. On
the bottom of the app are a record button for video and a shutter button for
photos. On the side are buttons for telephoto, regular, and wide angle, so you
can select the camera lens you want to use. On the top of the app are buttons
for setting, mode, colors, switching from back to front cameras, and button to
turn off the flash.

Going to the main page. There are options for camera and
camcorder. Some of the modes were kinda cool, and fairly self explanatory, like
slo-mo and penta shot. Manual modes were pretty cool for both photos and video.
For camera, it showed the 9 AF points in the center. At the bottom it showed
the graph, WB, Focus, EV, ISO, and Shutter Speed. You could also tap on each of
those items and make manual adjustments. For video mode, you had the same
buttons on the bottom of the page to make manual adjustments. But instead of
the graph, it showed you the quality setting as well as left and right channels
to show real time audio levels for the hi-fi stereo sound. There was also a
hi-fi button to make adjustments to the audio. Making adjustments was all very
easy to do!

Analyzing the photos, I was impressed with the quality. I
saw no readily apparent negatives, such as vignetting or barrel distortions. LG
did a good job on the lenses. The colors seemed very natural and correctly
saturated with good detail. And even in difficult low light settings, it did
better than expected with a well useable image.

For video, I’ve always had a hard time with concerts. So I
thought I’d see how well it would do with my daughter’s play. The lighting for
the junior high schools equipment gave for a good challenge. The HDR definitely
helped. But being able to easily go and make brightness adjustments on the fly
was even better! I was also impressed with the quality of the audio! You don’t
always have great environments when you want to take photos and videos. But the
easiness to make quick adjustments made for made for easily usable photos and
videos in most lighting conditions. I can’t help but to quote Vader:
“Impressive…Most impressive!” It has me more excited and wanting to take photos
and video with this phone, then I ever have been with any other phone.

Now it’s time for what has me the most excited on this
phone. The audio features. Users of quality wired headphones can rise and shout
hallelujah! Not only does the LG V40 ThinQ still have a headphone jack, it also
has a quad 32-bit DAC! Going into the phone settings, you can access the sound
quality and effects settings. Here you can change volume (if hard buttons stop
working) and access the equalizer, which has 13 different sound curves to
choose from.

In these Sound Quality and effects setting, you can also
access and turn on and off the DTS:X3D Sound and the hi-fi Quad DAC. The DTS:X
is pretty cool and gives you a bit of a 3D sound with a few different effects
of wide, front, and side to side. But what I love is the hi-fi Quad DAC! It
amplifies the sound, and more importantly makes your headphones sound much
better! With the Hi-Fi Quad DAC engaged, you also have access to a few sound
presets, a few digital filters, as well as the ability to adjust the balance of
your headphones.

The Hi-Fi Quad DAC is also not a gimmick. It not only works,
it works extremely well! Audiophiles will rejoice. I turned to some of my
favorite tracks and every single one sounded amazing. Using my reference
Beyerdynamic DT 1990 Pro’s, I was actually a little taken back after hearing
some nuances and details that I hadn’t picked up on before! Use some good
quality headphones and thanks to the hi-fi Quad DAC, the LG V40 will let you
hear things in your music you may not have heard or noticed before! Highs were crisp and clean and not overly bright. Mids were smooth with excellent harmonics. Bass had great extension and punch and played with authority. In all I would say the sound provided was very transparent to the source, with excellent resolution to hear all of the aural bliss you are used to hearing with your music, only better!! I ended up
getting lost in my music, in a listening session that ended up going on for a
lot longer than I had planned. And that’s probably the biggest compliment I
could give.

Looking back, LG has hit the ball out of the park with the
LG V40. With the improvements to phones year after year with manufacturers, it
can be hard for some to catch up, or stay ahead of the curve. Some like
Samsung, have excellent products themselves. Hi-Res Audio is gaining more and
more ground, and gaining in popularity. With the LG V40, Audiophiles have an all
in one device. And it also makes non-high res files sound better. After all, if
you’re going to listen to your music, enjoy it! With the LG V40, you definitely
will!! And LG may just have more market share coming their way thanks to the
V40. And if you don’t like wires for your headphones but still want to enjoy
hi-res audio, the LG V40 has you covered there as well, with aptX HD
compatibility. I was also surprised at some manufacturers not having aptX HD
compatibility in their new phones.At
least LG is making audio a priority.

LG has a real winner here with their LG V40 ThinQ. It is
very well built, and feels very solid in hand. The finish of the glass and edges
are excellent. The screen is gorgeous, and has the power to handle what you
throw at it. The cameras also perform great, and sound quality is top rated for
what is available for phones. If the LG V40 isn’t on your short list for phones
to checkout, it should be. Based on it’s design, features, quality and
performance, the LG V40 ThinQ has earned our Editor’s Choice award. For more
info and specs, check out their website at www.LG.com.